The present disclosure relates to a display unit that may use four-color sub-pixels of red (R), green (G), blue (B), and white (W), for example, for a single pixel, and to an electronic apparatus that includes such a display unit.
The most widely used method for carrying out a color image display in a display unit having a plurality of pixels is to arrange three sub-pixels corresponding to three primary colors of red (R), green (G), and blue (B) in each pixel and adjust the luminance level in each of the sub-pixels individually. Such a method allows the chromaticity point and luminance as a whole pixel to be set up at will, resulting in the color image display being achieved.
An example of such a display unit capable of performing the color image display may be a liquid crystal display unit. The liquid crystal display unit typically includes a backlight for applying white irradiation light and a liquid crystal display panel. Typically in the liquid crystal display panel, there is provided a color filter corresponding to each of colors of R, G, and B for each sub-pixel, and a polarizing plate is attached at each of the light-incoming side thereof and the light-outgoing side thereof. Consequently, the intensity of light to be emitted from the backlight decreases in the polarizing plates and the color filters, resulting in deterioration in the overall light utilization efficiency of the liquid crystal display unit. This leads to a significant energy loss in the liquid crystal display unit, causing an increase in power consumption.
Accordingly, to reduce the power consumption, a structure has been proposed that uses four-color sub-pixels for each pixel in a liquid crystal display panel (for example, see PTL 1). In concrete terms, in addition to the three-color sub-pixels of R, G, and B as described above, a sub-pixel of white (W), yellow (Y), or the like that exhibits the higher luminance than these three colors is used to carry out the image display, thereby improving the luminance efficiency to achieve the low power consumption.
Examples of such a display unit using the four-color sub-pixels may include an organic EL (Electro Luminescence) display unit in addition to the above-described liquid crystal display unit (for example, see PTL 2 to PTL 5).